Writing Support Services

Writing Support Services offers a supportive atmosphere for confidential dialog about the writing process. Our consultants are engaged in students' writing, and offer a non-directive, responsive approach to providing students with the strategies needed to learn productive habits in all stages of writing. Services offered include:

Scheduling Information

For the first two weeks of the fall and spring semesters, Writing Support Services offers limited individual consulting hours. Starting from the third week of each semester, the Writing Support Services will offer regular consulting hours. Visit our scheduling system for information. If all appointments are taken or if none of the available hours work for you, please email the WSS Coordinator.

How to Schedule and Prepare for an Appointment

  1. Go to our scheduling system.
  2. Use your Active Directory ID and password.
  3. Once you are logged in to the scheduling system, the calendar will display available appointments.
  4. Select an open time to make an appointment.  After you make the appointment, you will receive a confirmation email, informing you of the place and time to meet your consultant. Each person is limited to one appointment per week.
  5. At least 24 hours before your appointment, email a draft of your paper as an attachment to warnerwritingsupport@warner.rochester.edu and/or your consultant's email address. In your email, list two or three aspects of your paper that you would like to focus on during your appointment.
  6. If an appointment is listed as a “Drop-in” appointment, you do not need to make an appointment.  Simply visit LeChase 370 to meet with a writing consultant during drop-in hours.

Frequently Asked Questions

Writing Support Services offers assistance to Warner students in many areas of writing. Students are expected to take responsibility for their choices about their own writing. We encourage students to take notes during consultation sessions. Among the services offered, we:

  • Review your paper before a scheduled session and prepare questions that other readers may ask.
  • Answer your questions and try to respond to your concerns about your paper.
  • Direct your attention to resources that might prove useful.
  • Suggest strategies, offer encouragement, and provide information to help you move forward with your work.
  • Help you set priorities based on your needs, identifying points of revision that are possible within a particular timeframe.
  • Help you clarify the point of a section or the whole paper by asking questions and listening to your answers.
  • Indicate patterns in your writing that you may wish to modify: organization of points, sentence patterns, word choice, tone, grammar, etc.

Although we try to meet many needs of students, we cannot:

  • Proofread or edit drafts of papers
  • Address every strength and weakness in the draft, or point out every issue related to sentence structure, grammar, or mechanics.
  • Promise that your paper will be finished when you leave the consultation; in all likelihood you will leave with work to do.
  • Guarantee a one-to-one correlation between your consultation and better grades. Nor will we discuss grades during sessions.
  • Guarantee that our interpretation of an instructor’s assignment will be accurate.

Students who want proofreading assistance can access the link below to view a list of editor and proofreader freelance consultants who offer their services for a fee. 

View list of consultants

A typical session will address one or more of the following concerns: focus, organization/structure, audience, transitions, paragraph unity, and grammar/syntax. Sessions will be 50 minutes long, with an additional 5 to 10 minutes for wrap-up and evaluation. For papers longer than 15 pages, you may want to make several appointments during your writing process. Because of high demand, each student may only schedule one consultation per week.

If you have questions about whether it is appropriate to get feedback from the Writing Support Services on take-home exams or comprehensive exams, please ask your instructor or advisor before bringing in your paper. Teaching and Curriculum doctoral students may not use Writing Support Services for help with their comprehensive exams, unless they are users of English as an additional language. Support for comprehensive examinations will be limited to two appointments per examination. Students may also bring revised comprehensive examinations for writing support (for an additional two appointments).

The earlier in the writing process you use Writing Support Services, the more helpful the consultants can be. Keep in mind that scheduling an appointment for the day before a paper is due will most likely be more stressful than helpful. Please allow at least three to four days for revision between your appointment and the assignment due date.
 
When you schedule a session you will receive a confirmation email stating the location of your consultation—there is no longer an office available for WSS consultations.

However, if you cancel within three hours of your appointment time, you will be considered a “no show.” Students who are “no shows” for three appointments during one semester will be blocked from appointments for the rest of the semester.

No less than 24 hours before your appointment, please e-mail the following to: warnerwritingsupport@warner.rochester.edu:

  • The writing prompt or assignment from the instructor.
  • Your paper, double-spaced. If it is a long text, either send a section or note which section you want to receive support on. (If you have not started to write your paper, bring your notes and ideas about it.)
  • A statement in your e-mail that identifies two or three areas that you would like to focus on during the session (e.g., your argument, organization, clarity, APA style, etc.).

If your text is not ready 24 hours in advance, you may still bring content and ideas for discussion; however, the consultant will not prepare in advance. Consultants are not available to go over the specifics of an assignment; please contact the instructor with these questions.

Drop-in writing support sessions offer you an opportunity to discuss academic writing questions face-to-face with a writing consultant, without scheduling an appointment in advance. Drop-in sessions are available only when not all of the regularly scheduled appointments have been reserved.

  • To find out if Drop-in appointments will be available on a particular day, visit our scheduling system on that same day and look for appointment hours labeled ‘Drop in’. These appointments are automatically made available on our webpage on a rolling basis, 24hours before an open appointment slot.
  •  Drop-in sessions are available on a first-come, first-served basis.
  • A physical sign-up sheet will be available 30 minutes in advance of the Drop-in Consultations outside of LeChase room 370. You must go to the room at that time and sign up to reserve the drop-in slot for that particular day.
  •  You may use as many drop-in appointments as are available, but you must sign up for each one separately.
  •  Using a drop-in appointment will not prevent you from being allowed to sign up for a full writing consultation appointment during the same week.
  •  Drop-in consulting sessions are an experiment of the Writing Support Services. This service may be discontinued if it is not used. We welcome your feedback on our experiment! To give feedback or for more information, please email the WSS Coordinator.
Need Writing Assistance?
Schedule an appointment
Scheduling Conflicts?

If our scheduled workshops or proposed consultation sessions conflict with your work or course schedule, please contact us: warnerwritingsupport@ur.rochester.edu

Fall 2024 Writing Workshops

Attend workshops via Zoom, access workshop recordings, and request accommodations here.

Saturday, Sept. 14, 10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m., LeChase 481

This workshop will focus on how to read academic journal articles and other texts efficiently and rhetorically. Participants will practice deconstructing academic texts by identifying arguments, pinpointing the author’s position, evaluating evidence, asking questions, and taking notes. 

NOTE: This is NOT a speed-reading course, but rather the first step to unpacking academic writing.

If you plan to attend this workshop, please RSVP here. Preregistration is not required but can help us with planning.

Friday, Sept. 20, 4:15 p.m.-5:45 p.m., LeChase 481

This workshop will discuss common pitfalls that constitute plagiarism in academic writing. Participants will learn how to enter academic conversations efficiently by re-using ideas from and citing sources. We will practice approaches related to ‘textual borrowing,’ including paraphrasing, quoting, and summarizing.

If you plan to attend this workshop, please RSVP here. Preregistration is not required but can help us with planning.

Saturday, Oct. 5, 10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m., LeChase 481

Making arguments is a core function of many types of academic writing, from reading responses to critical commentaries, proposals, and longer texts such as theses and dissertations. This workshop will discuss how to develop an argument drawing on your ideas and research and other evidence.

If you plan to attend this workshop, please RSVP here. Preregistration is not required but can help us with planning.

Friday, Oct. 11, 4:15 p.m.-5:45 p.m., LeChase 481

This workshop will explore features of the APA Publication Manual style. Participants will gain hands-on experience with formatting citations, references, and other paper elements, creating headings for different sections of an academic text, and reducing bias in the academic language. To get the most out of this workshop, have available your APA Publication Manual (7th ed.).

If you plan to attend this workshop, please RSVP here. Preregistration is not required but can help us with planning.

Friday, Oct. 18, 4:15 p.m.-5:15 p.m., LeChase 481

Resumes and CVs are both marketing tools aimed at persuading decision-makers to offer you an interview for the positions you apply to, but their structure, composition, and use are distinctly different. Each document should tell your story in a way that differentiates you so that you rise to the top of the applicant pool. In this workshop, we will look at examples of both resumes and CVs and address questions about writing them. Time will be allocated to answering your requests for advice on works in progress.

If you plan to attend this workshop, please RSVP here. Preregistration is not required but can help us with planning.

Friday, Oct. 25, 4:15 p.m.-5:15 p.m., LeChase 481

Many job seekers don’t know what to say in cover letters, so opt to repeat the information included on their resume or CV. Instead, the purpose of a cover letter is to make a persuasive argument for you to be selected for an interview for the position for which you’re applying. Thus, filling in the blanks of a generic cover letter template is not likely to be persuasive. 

A persuasive argument in a cover letter grows out of the research you’ve conducted about the organization and the requirements of the position. It focuses on the audience rather than you, the applicant, and includes vivid, specific examples of your competencies for the job. 

A good cover letter illustrates the aspects of your background, values, and knowledge that align with the position and appeal to the organization. It closes by asking explicitly for an interview.

If you plan to attend this workshop, please RSVP here. Preregistration is not required but can help us with planning.

Consultants

Onesmo Mushi

Onesmo Mushi

Onesmo is a PhD student in the Teaching and Curriculum program at the Warner School of Education. He has a master's degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Second Languages (TESOL) from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA, under the Fulbright scholarship and a Bachelor of Education in Special Needs from the University of Dodoma, Tanzania. Before joining graduate school, he taught English to secondary school students for five years in Tanzania. He also spent a year learning the Chinese language at the Zhengzhou University of Aeronautics in China. His research interests include Academic and Professional Writing, Transnational Literacy, and Curriculum Reform.

Xiatinghan Xu

Xiatinghan Xu

Xiatinghan is a PhD candidate in Teaching and Curriculum at the Warner School and coordinator of the Writing Support Services. She holds a BA in English from Sichuan University and a MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from the University of Southern California. Before coming to Rochester, she worked as an ESL teacher at LA Technology Center, where she finished her case study of immigrant adult English learning. She also has years of experience teaching TOEFL reading and writing. Her current research interests focus on multilingual writers’ research and publishing practices.

Xinyue Wang

Xinyue Wang 

Xinyue is an EdD student in the Counseling and Counselor Education program at the Warner School of Education. She has a BA degree in Communication Studies and English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a MA degree in Education Psychology, with a focus on Counseling and Student Personnel Psychology from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. She has been working with international students in higher education settings, providing them with academic and social-emotional support for the past seven years. She is interested in understanding international students' experiences and fostering optimal development, well-being, and a sense of belonging for the student population in higher education settings. 

Abigail Zang Hoffman

ABIGAIL ZANG HOFFMAN

Abby is a PhD student in Human Development at the Warner School. She earned a BA from Cornell University, and she earned both a Master of Divinity and master’s degree in social work from the University of Chicago. For the past 18 years, she has been a Pastor serving in congregations in Upstate NY. Her research interests include well-being, social connection, and community-based efforts to address the epidemic of loneliness.

A portrait of the Warner School's Writing Support Services Consultant, Dardan Shabani.

Dardan Shabani

Dardan is a PhD student in Teaching and Curriculum at the Warner Graduate School of Education. He has a master’s degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from the same school. He has been working as an English teacher for 11 years in different educational institutions, such as English language centers, public schools, and higher education, and in various geolinguistic contexts, including Kosovo, United States, and France. He has taught courses such as English for Academic Purposes, Business English, and introductory course in linguistics at Université Lumière and Université Jean Moulin in Lyon, France. His research interests lie in the field of TESOL and English teacher identity.

Contact Us

Email inquiries to:

warnerwritingsupport@warner.rochester.edu. 

Accommodations

For accommodations related to writing, contact Mary Judge at:

 (585) 273-1838 or Mjudge@warner.rochester.edu